


Another Day

by yesterdaisy_______57



Category: Real Person Fiction, The Beatles (Band)
Genre: 'Another Day' (song), Bread-making, Dreams, Octopus, PIND (Paul Is Nearly Dead) Theory, References to Depression, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 18:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16686859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yesterdaisy_______57/pseuds/yesterdaisy_______57
Summary: Post Beatles breakup, between February and September 1971.John is missing the group: he gets paranoid and develops a PIND (Paul Is Nearly Dead) theory because of a recent release of Paul's.





	Another Day

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t personally subscribe to any theories of PID. This was mainly just to show how funny and off-the-mark, though possibly convincing, searching for “clues” can turn out to be.  
> Usually I try to stick with true or realistic events, but this never happened.

    Naturally John had a copy of ‘Another Day’. He also owned  _ Ram  _ and  _ McCartney _ . He was in the habit of hiring an exceptionally average-looking man who could keep his mouth closed to go into the shop with money whenever Paul released something and buy it for him. Further, John felt certain that Paul had a similar system.

The song was vaguely familiar, something Paul had been working on before they (the group) had broken up. Possibly during the  _ Let it Be  _ sessions. But John had hardly been paying attention then.

As time wore on, however, bringing them farther and farther from those Beatle days, John began to notice that just occasionally... now and then… he missed Paul McCartney.

And as time wore on John found himself paying more attention, drawn to the record player more and more often, setting the needle into ‘Another Day’ yet another time. Dust had begun to gather on the disc, as he kept it out to spare the trouble of taking it out and putting it back so frequently.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else he had not gotten yet from the song. Something urgent-- something utterly elusive.

And so there he knelt by the record player, his chest tightening slightly at the familiar sound of that voice--  _ Paul. _ The melodic,  _ genius  _ bass sound. That proof that he was still here, just the same. And he, John, knew every aspect of that body that now lived without him:  _ McCartney carries on Lennonless _ . They simply didn’t need each other as they had so desperately before; the umbilical cord was cut and now it was Paul and Linda… John and Yoko.

And yet… now and then, he would wonder… was it really so simple?

The first time that John heard a clue, he was covered in flour. He had decided to take up bread-making, which was quite satisfying when it went well. However, the jar had just slipped out of his wet hand, spraying him in dry white flour and jostling the table on which his record player sat. Paul skipped a groove and words rang out into the kitchen:

_ Ah, stay… don’t stand her up _

_ And he comes.... _

John went pale under the flour and, tiptoeing around the broken jar’s contents, he picked up the needle --silence-- and set it back. There it was again: ‘Ah, stay…’ John picked up the needle again and shut off the song, his heart beating fast. He glanced behind him at the mess of flour, lips pressed together, and stepped around it to get a broom. After it was swept into a bin he sat down in an armchair, barely taking in what he saw.

In the centre of his vision he could so vividly see the top of Paul’s head as he sat, elbows on knees, in front of John. John had been standing up and his glasses were on: he could see individual dark hairs, curling as they came down his jaw and reflecting some of the sunlight that poured in through Paul’s window. He had only come here because of a guitar that had been left by the piano the last time -- _ lifetimes ago  _ \-- that he had come. Paul had threatened to change the strings round and use it himself if John didn’t come pick it up soon, so he had shown up at the doorstep. Having retrieved it from where Paul had said it was, he was now preparing to leave.

They had never acted so markedly different: Paul was oddly quiet, sitting on a low stool with his head down; John was antsy and staring down at him, clutching the neck of his guitar as though trying to strangle it. He wanted to say something before he left -- all he had uttered thus far was three words (‘Where is it?’) -- but he did not know what to say. This distance between them was unfamiliar yet.

‘Ah, stay, John,’ implored Paul, finally looking up at him. His eyes were  _ exactly _ the shape that they had always been. The same hazel. Unremarkable, yet John felt that familiarity to be jarring, when it was taken with this coldness and distance their relationship had acquired. ‘Come on, have a cup of tea-- the kettle’s already on.’

‘No,’ said John sharply. ‘Things aren’t just how they were before. It’s not 1958: everything is  _ different. _ Goodbye, Paul.’ And he turned and strode out the door.

_ Things aren’t just how they were before… _ Was that really what he’d wanted to say? Paul had really wanted him to stay, John had hear him say it---

‘Oh-- stay.’ They were at Abbey Road. George was staring at John accusedly, while Ringo looked at the ceiling. Paul had been the first to respond to John’s announcement. ‘Things will work out, John. We can’t do this with you gone.’

Neither Ringo nor George said anything. Perhaps George wanted to replace him with Eric Clapton, as John had almost done with him. Ringo, John felt, knew it was over as well as he himself did.

‘He doesn’t  _ want _ to ‘do this’ anymore,’ countered Yoko, coming into the circle from behind John. John’s gut gave a guilty jerk: he had nearly forgotten she was there. Paul looked at her, then turned his eyes back to John’s. John gave him a hard look.

‘I’ll stay until the album’s released,’ he said shortly. ‘Then we’re off.’ And he turned away from the others.

John shifted in his chair. It was foolish to think that Paul would be speaking directly to him. He knew it was over. He knew there was no way for John to ‘stay’ now that he was long gone. And Paul surely didn’t expect John would listen hard enough to notice. But there it was… and couldn’t he recall Paul’s voice so clearly, saying those words to  _ him _ so many times? If there was anyone Paul would sing to directly… would it not be John?

Over the next few days John tried to talk himself out of his new discovery’s plausibility. It was hard to stay away from the song, which still felt as though it was hiding something from him, but he punched holes in his own theory as he listened: first of all, the song was about a woman, not Paul. It was unlikely that he could even relate to the character. The song was just another ‘Eleanor Rigby’: the mundane life of a depressed female, as told by a relentlessly optimistic male.

Besides, Paul did not live in an apartment anymore. And he was not known to write to agony aunt columns.

Secondly, he was overreacting to Paul’s simple use of the word ‘stay’. Though in context ‘come’ would have worked much more nicely, it was likely that Paul had realised the downfall of singing ‘Ah, come’ and replaced it less expertly.

Yet little things nagged at John: the fact that Paul sang about the unnamed woman drinking plenty of coffee yet still falling asleep, for example, when John knew perfectly well that he had an inordinately high tolerance for caffeine. Or the fact that he could easily imagine Paul heading straight for his bedroom chair after a bath exactly because that  _ was _ what he would  _ always do _ . Or the way Paul slowed down at ‘raincoat’, emulating the melody of ‘Two of Us’.

It would be best, John decided, to forget about the whole thing. Whether Paul really did miss him and mean to drop hints about it (which did not sound in the slightest like the sort of plan he’d make) or whether John was reading too much into the situation, it did not matter. Most likely, Paul did miss him just as he missed Paul. John urged himself to be patient -- it would work itself out with patience and time.

One night, however, he could not help but bring up something over dinner that had been nagging him.

‘Paul’s happy, isn’t he?’ he blurted out.

Yoko looked up at him from her plate wide-eyed, face unreadable.

‘He’s got Linda,’ John continued, ‘and he’s always such a bloody optimist anyway.’

‘Well,’ said Yoko offhandedly, ‘he’s only depressed in the first place because he didn’t know how to handle not fitting in with our new partnership. But he’ll get over it.’

John felt as if someone had dumped a large bucket of cold water over his head. He was only vaguely aware that Yoko was still talking… Linda was helping, she was saying…

Helping Paul, because he was… what? John tried foggily to imagine Paul struggling with being -- what Yoko had said he was; his former partner’s face bobbed up and down in his head, eyes alight, expression persistently upbeat.

‘John?’ Yoko snapped John back to reality. ‘Darling, don’t worry about it. He’s fine. It’s just us now, isn’t that nice?’

But no, she didn’t  _ understand _ … Paul was trying to  _ tell him _ something… What was it? Why was she saying so casually that he was… ?

‘Sorry,’ John mumbled disjointedly, ‘I think I’m finished, your night to clean up-- I’m going to bed.’

He knew she was watching him concernedly as he stumbled into their room, but he didn’t turn back. He wanted to think things through alone once he got into the dark, but before he knew it he was dreaming, and there was Paul-- and an octopus with bright blue eyes was loping into the studio now and Paul was greeting it --  _ ah, stay  _ \-- and they both started to cry big, wobbly tears.

George showed up and gestured to Paul and the octopus: ‘They’re one with each other now, John, don’t you see?’ -- and then he turned into Yoko, who took John lovingly in her arms like a baby.

‘It’s all right, just don’t worry about them…’ she cooed, and he curved his head up to kiss her-- but no, he was in  _ Paul’s _ arms and they were in Liverpool and Mike McCartney was downstairs telling them to ‘Thump a little quieter, will ya!’

Paul and John laughed and Paul strummed his Zenith once, but it was not the acoustic sound that John had been expecting: this sound was electric and it only seemed to get louder -- the sun was suddenly right by Paul’s window and here it came, getting brighter and louder and brighter and louder-- until John suddenly opened his eyes.

He was in London, and the sun was shining brightly into the bedroom. He looked to his left, but Yoko was evidently already out. In his mind, Paul was once again casual, comfortably asking, ‘Did you dream about me last night?’ John closed his eyes, but he couldn’t disappear again from the house.

He sat up and stared out the window into the blur of  _ l’exterieur. _ Bloody French class hadn’t been good for much but he knew how to say ‘fuck’ and ‘can I get a tea’ and ‘he wants another milkshake’ and, for some reason, ‘the outside’. He wondered how much German he still remembered. Paul had always been very good at it.

Paul. What was it Yoko had said?

John knew that it was ridiculous but he knew that it was true. Paul McCartney was depressed. How had  _ that _ happened? He could see his happy energeticness so clearly in his mind’s eye, so naturally, his motivation and hope. It was hard to imagine Paul so sad. And even as that thought went through John’s head, he heard the next words of that damn song…

_ So sad, so sad. _

_ Sometimes, she feels so sad. _

And suddenly John could see that side of him clearly. It had only come along with the new decade, never before. But John could see Paul in the studio, putting everything into keeping them together: it was what and who he had. Jane was gone, Brian was gone, Mary was gone, and Jim no longer seemed to need him and Mike so much, with his new wife. What Paul had always depended on was music to save him. He had put his enormous supply of hope towards them staying together and struggled as it was all lost:  _ that _ was why he had been so reluctant to admit that they were not going to make it. Because he’d be… alone.

_ Alone in her apartment she dwells _

_ Till the man of her dreams comes to break the spell _

_ Ah, stay, don’t stand her up _

_ And he comes and he stays, but he leaves the next day _

_ So sad. Sometimes she feels so sad… _

Well, thank God for Linda. But she  _ couldn’t _ be the ‘man of her dreams’, because Linda had never left the next day. Not like  _ he _ had. Not like John.

And then he remembered something else. Way back in 1958, when John’s mum had only just died, and Paul had used just those words.

‘John, you made  _ her _ life better. I know you thought she was just perfect for you and all, but you’re the man of her dreams. She loves you.’

‘Loved,’ grunted John.

‘No, loves,’ insisted Paul, and John didn’t have the heart to correct him again.

He’d recalled that conversation many times since, though he had never mentioned it again to Paul. In fact, the only person he’d acknowledged it with was Ringo, who was exceptional at getting John to say things he often guarded: perhaps it was the same with Ringo and Paul, because the former had come up after a session one day afterwards and told John straight out that Paul loved him like a brother and would do anything for him -- and further, that he, John, loved Paul equally and would do the same thing. John stared at him.

‘Well, I’m not doing anything,’ he replied. ‘I’m not going to keep the stupid band together just for Paul, I’ve got other things happening now.’ John saw Ringo glance at a slightly distressed Yoko before meeting his eyes again and he raised his eyebrows testily. He was tired of people trying to convince him to try to keep the band together, and he certainly did not need Ringo to jump on the Band Wagon.

‘I said you love him. I never said you  _ are _ doing anything for him,’ Ringo pointed out sharply. ‘He loves you anyway -- not that he’s doing anything for you either. But  _ he _ isn’t  _ leaving _ .’

Ringo looked around to see Yoko take the matter of their separation into her own hands. ‘JOHHN!’ she moaned into his and Paul’s microphone.

John raised his eyebrows at Ringo. ‘Nice observation. Can I go to Yoko now?’

‘Loves, not loved,’ Ringo said swiftly, and John hesitated.

‘Right,’ he said, nearly as doubtful of the present tense as he had been during the original conversation. ‘I’m sure I’m the  _ man of his dreams _ .’

Ringo shrugged.

John winced, remembering. He had been wrong -- he should have stayed -- even if it did mean people surrounding them everywhere. It was too late to change what was going on  _ outside _ the Beatles, but at least then they still had each other to help deal with the rest of life’s fame. John remembered how George would always thank God they weren’t Elvis because there was only one of him. Now there were simply all the people surrounding each one of them.

Having reached this uncomfortable conclusion, John went to pour himself a glass of milk and sat down in a chair. After a moment’s hesitation, he put on Paul’s baby.

The elusive, urgent message hit him just past halfway through the song.

_ As she posts another letter to the  _ Sound of Five,

_ People gather ‘round her and she  _ _ finds it hard to stay alive _ _ , _

_ It’s just another day… _

Finds it hard to stay alive… It was as though a rock had just dropped straight through all of his guts. Just like Paul to put it like that, matter-of-fact, so measuredly throw-away, because he never understood that anyone would fucking care if his world was turned upside down.

But now-- how long would he be able to make it alone? Suddenly the proof that McCartney lived on became the proof that those days were numbered… Another name to be added to the Lennon list of losses. Julia, Uncle George, Julia again, Stuart, Brian Epstein… and ‘Paul McCartney’, pending. John sat there quite still, listening to the end of Paul’s song as his mind raced. He could not let that happen.  _ How long does he have? _ he demanded of Paul’s record.  _ How long do _ I  _ have till he does the job? How do I get to him? _ How long does he have?!?!

And with trepidation, John heard Paul’s cheerful voice answering his final question:

_ Oo-oh-oh-- it’s just another day. _

_ It’s just another day, it’s just another day--! _

_ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉ _ ⇉⇉

John burst through Paul’s front door. There was no one in sight. Heart pounding rapidly between rib and spine, he sprinted wildly through the house. He swung open the kitchen door--really noticed the liquor collection for the first time. He swung open the door to a guest bedroom at random--then to the toilet--finally the door to Paul and Linda’s bedroom.

‘Paul!’ he blurted, then took in the scene in front of him.

Paul stared at him. ‘John?’ He was barefoot, his face freshly shaven again, and his goldenrod trousers, rolled up, along with the light shirt he was wearing open gave the impression that he was comfortable and relaxed, if rather warm. A guitar sat under his left arm, but his hands had fallen into his lap in surprise. He appeared completely unharmed.

John looked wildly at Paul. Those familiar hazel eyes, looking straight at him as though he were a lunatic, that hair -- near black but not quite, the scar (completely accounted-for--normal) above his lip, the insides of untouched wrists, the intact torso and neck -- ‘Paul.’

Paul set his guitar down and they both just looked at each other. As soon as he stood up John pulled him into a tight hug. ‘Touching is good,’ he said, mumbling into Paul’s shoulder. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to relax into the feeling of Paul’s body in his arms and Paul’s arms around him.

‘John…’ Paul murmured into his shoulder, and it felt lovely to hear him say it.

‘I should never have left,’ he confessed quietly.

**Author's Note:**

> John would be the one to get so paranoid, wouldn’t he? He’s quite protective sometimes.  
> Hope you liked it! I appreciate comments.


End file.
